


Forest

by Lethalfurry



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 06:50:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3640767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lethalfurry/pseuds/Lethalfurry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You can’t go there.” They said, with a calm and reprimanding tone, as if just telling me since they were already there. As if there was no chance that I would ever go inside it. “That forest is full of death. As beautiful as the things there may be, they’ll definitely kill you.”<br/>They told me as if I didn’t already know.<br/>...Should I go? Or...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forest

**Author's Note:**

> Just a small drabble I wrote once. Please, do enjoy.

Once, in a really really long time ago, I dared to wander in a certain forest.

There was nothing in the forest that wasn’t dangerous to me. Absolutely everything in it could kill me with a wrong step. The mushrooms were colored in the most unique kinds of ways, and the trees held all shapes of fruit, every single one of them looking as if they would make your very palate melt once you bit into them. And of course, once it did, and you fell into a most comfortable sleep, the grass of the forest would accept your entire body, with the leaves either scattered on the ground or attached to their trees, playing a most wonderful lullaby.

So it was safe to say that, all things considered about that forest, it was incredibly dreamy. It was a place that I wanted to explore, a place that held expectations of being like heaven to me. I wondered what kinds of animals would be raised inside such a peaceful place; was it even possible that there were any carnivores there? The forest didn’t seem like the kind that anyone would want to taint with blood, but it wasn’t as simple as that. It gave off the attitude that, if it had blood splattered on it, it would use that blood and make a most wonderful painting with it.

…Just thinking about that made me want to get up from my chair and go there. When was the last time I felt like doing something like this? How many years had I spent taking walks around my surroundings? There were all kinds of places around me, but the more I explored, the more I learned, the more I realized that they were all alike. They all came from the same origins, and so, with enough effort, you could learn completely about one through the other.

Therefore, eventually…I decided that they weren’t worth researching about anymore. They weren’t worth learning about anymore. It was just wasted effort.

So this was a very special occasion. Something worthy of a celebration, even! But just like there was always the grumpy child in Christmas, or the person who had an unrequited crush on the groom or bride during a wedding…there was a person that tried to stop me from enjoying my own celebration.

“You can’t go there.” They said, with a calm and reprimanding tone, as if just telling me since they were already there. As if there was no chance that I would ever go inside it. “That forest is full of death. As beautiful as the things there may be, they’ll definitely kill you.” They told me as if I didn’t already know. I felt the urge to scoff, to make a sarcastic comment or two and then be on my way and watch as they desperately chased me to stop me, but I held it back in. Doing things like that would only hurt my chances of ever getting to the place that I so desired.

And so, instead of letting it all out, I steamed over what I was feeling. There was a really faint degree of aggressiveness to my thoughts as I kept calling them a hypocrite over and over. The reason for that was that, at one point in my life, they told me that I “should always keep going, always keep exploring”.

If a person always has to keep going, then what is so wrong about going in the direction of the forest?

If a person always has to keep exploring, then what is so wrong about exploring that forest?

“You only lose when you stop going.”

What do I lose? A game? My will? My humanity?

You can’t stop thinking about things, otherwise you will “lose”. You can’t stop walking and going on forward, otherwise you will “lose”.

…So.

If you gave up on thinking about bad things, then would you lose? If you gave up on walking towards and experimenting bad things, would you?

I pondered over that as I walked in circles. I walked and walked and walked, until my body completely ran out of energy and started slowly shutting down. I lost feeling on my body parts such as my arms, legs and face. Then it was my hearing that had gone away. Perhaps my palate or smell had gone before it, but I didn’t really stop to notice. But the endpoint was that I had lost my eyesight. So without being able to tell where I was going, I walked without direction at one point and fell over after some time.

And then, when I woke up, where would I be except for…the entrance to that forest.

I could tell even though my view wasn’t one of the best, what with being on the ground. So, like a laidback teenager who had woken up early during a holiday thinking that it was a schoolday, I…lazed around in my “bed”.

I didn’t know what to do. I really wanted to explore that forest, even though there was the chance that it would kill me. But I also didn’t want to make anyone sad or angry, and I didn’t really know if I wanted to die. But I wanted to think about it. I wanted to know about it. I wanted to explore and take my own conclusions from it…even if it meant having the incredibly high chance of dying.

If I rose myself from the ground, then where would my legs take me? Would they take me back home, or into the place that I had yet to know? Maybe my legs had an opinion of their own. Maybe relying on them wasn’t reliable, and was just like relying on someone else.

Or perhaps relying on things like chance and instinct were just completely cowardly to me.

Saying things such as “I’ll leave it up to chance, and I’ll accept whatever decision it makes” is a thing that only a coward would do. In the end, you can’t really have neutral feelings no matter the choice. You’ll regret a choice, and you’ll feel happy for another, as small as the feeling may be.

So, I wouldn’t be able to rely on my legs. I couldn’t just give myself the relief of not having to make a choice. To truly understand something, improve from it and lay down your heart to rest…you would need to understand it. Therefore, I’d first have to understand the choices that I had now.

To begin with, one of the choices wasn’t so much a choice as much as it was the beginning to one. “To explore”. “To think”. There was no objective attached to it except my own journey. At best, I could find one along the way.

And the other was simply just avoidance. “Do not explore.” “Do not think.” This one…also really had no purpose to it. If I followed that path, in the end, I would find nothing. That was a certainty. If I followed it and went around the entire world except that forest, then I would just be back at where I was before. If I stood in place and did nothing in that path, then I would still be looking at that forest. So, in my opinion…

I have to walk inside that forest. I have to explore everything in it that can kill me, that wants to kill me. I don’t want to believe that it’s wrong to live a life that isn’t safe or happy, to consider everything else in the world. So just before I go, I want to offer a prayer to everyone that is also stopping other people from exploring their own forests:

Please walk along them. If you want to protect them, then do not hold them back.

What is there to gain by simply holding them back? If you follow them, then you too can gain knowledge alongside them.

Of what use is love and care that immobilizes you? Of what use is a hug that crushes someone’s bones? Hold their hand in the forest so they will not lose themselves. That, by itself, is already a lot.


End file.
